Secret Squirrel

Ok, this is war! As you may have read recently, my attempts to decorate my porch for autumn were scuppered by some crafty squirrels who ran off with my gourds. (There's a sentence I never thought I'd write!) As we get nearer to Halloween, more and more pumpkins are appearing around the neighbourhood. Today I realised where I had gone wrong. Any squirrel worth its salt would be worthy of carrying off a little gourd. Obviously the answer was to use giant pumpkins instead.
Not so. Within an hour Tufty had launched his attack, leaving a gaping hole and pumpkin seeds all over the porch. Trying to get back into the house was like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds.
I'm tempted to spray the remaining pumpkins with poison, but somehow this doesn't seem very charitable with the holiday season just around the corner. So if anybody can tell me the secret to keeping pumpkins whole on your porch, I'd love to hear from you.